Remembering the soldiers of the 371st Regiment Infantry

My great uncle, Henry Sibert, was just 21 years old when he was drafted into World War I in 1917 while living in Cedar Springs, Abbeville County, S.C., then traveled to the state capital of Columbia and ultimately joined the 1st Provisional Infantry that spawned the famous all-black unit, the 371st Regiment Infantry that earned numerous battle citations for valiant combat in France.

Although Uncle Henry — the older brother of my dad’s mother — died on Aug. 23, 1933, more than two decades before I was born and only served a couple of months likely due to illness or injury, he was buried in the nearby Philadelphia National Cemetery on Limekiln Pike, according to military records and my late father (Henry Scott, M.D.), who’d often recall the oodles of redwhite-and-blue flags fluttering in the wind the day Uncle Henry was laid to rest.

Today, with May 28’s Memorial Day upon us, I marvel at their valor for enduring some of the most segregated and racist conditions in America while growing up in South Carolina where the Civil War’s Confederacy was founded. Then they fought in some of the most horrific World War I battles before survivors returned home, often to face more racism and sometimes brutal lynching.

“They arrived on the Western Front in April 1918 before other American troops because of white South Carolinians’ fear of having a large force of armed black men in their midst,” notes writer Jeff Wilkinson in an article, “African-American World War 1 unit from SC fought with honor,” published 2015 in Columbia, SC’s newspaper, The State.

“Once in Europe, the regiment was placed under the command of the French Army because the French needed fresh troops, and out of fear of conflict between the regiment and the white Southern troops that would soon be arriving,” Wilkinson wrote.

Their combat record was stellar as they fought in the final offensive of “the Great War,” capturing large amounts of the German territory, as well as many enemy combatants and munitions. “Even more startling was the feat of shooting down three German airplanes with rifle and machine gun fire, perhaps a record for small arms’ ground fire.”

The 371st’s casualties were extremely heavy, though, with “more than 1,000 men out of 2,384” lost in just eight days, surely proof of their courage and tenacity.

“The French Government awarded the 371st the French Legion of Honor and the Croix de Guerre,” adds Wilkinson. “Ten officers and 12 enlisted men received the U.S. Distinguished Service Cross.”

Medal of Honor recipient Freddie Stowers, a black corporal from Sandy Springs, S.C., whose grandfather was a slave, was drafted in 1917, like my Uncle Henry, into the 371st Infantry Regiment, initially part of the 93rd Infantry Division, a larger black segregated contingent that faced virulent racism from white troops and officers.

According to government and military records, my Uncle Henry married in Iowa not long after being drafted, likely as a candidate to be trained as an officer like Stowers in the 371st. And although I’ve never seen a picture of him, his draft card describes Uncle Henry as “tall” and of “medium” weight or size with “brown” eyes and “black” hair.

Uncle Henry’s ancestors were slaves, too, probably on the Porcher family’s Cedar Springs Plantation straddling Berkeley and Abbeville counties in SC, near the banks of Lake Moultrie. In 1939, six years after his death in Philadelphia, the Porcher plantation and other nearby land was flooded as part of the Santee Cooper Hydroelectric Navigation Project, displacing many communities and families.

Several census reports indicate that Uncle Henry was racially a “mulatto,” as well as his father, George Sibert, my paternal greatgrandfather. George, according to family oral history, was born after a plantation manager or overseer walked into a family dwelling, pointed at one of the women and simply said, “You’re coming with me tonight.”

DNA and other archival evidence indicate that my greatgrandfather, George, was likely fathered by an elder George Sibert, a white resident of Greenwood, S.C., near Cedar Springs.

Meanwhile, although Stowers was recommended for the Medal of Honor shortly after his death during combat in 1918, due to apparent racism, that recognition was delayed for more than seven decades.

While heroically leading his platoon in the Ardennes region of France to a German machine gun nest, knocking that out, then moving on to more German line trenches before succumbing to withering gunfire, Stowers inspired his men to make more successful advances.

“Corporal Stowers’ conspicuous gallantry, extraordinary heroism, and supreme devotion to his men were well above and beyond the call of duty,” his official Medal of Honor citation says.

Stowers was buried with 133 of his fellow warriors at the MeuseArgonee American Cemetery in France.

Finally, on April 24, 1991, 73 years after his battlefield death, Stowers’s sisters posthumously received their brother’s Medal of Honor commendation from President George H.W. Bush at the White House.

Uncle Henry, just before being buried on Aug. 28, 1933, at the Philadelphia National Cemetery with several of his 371st comrades among flapping red-whiteand-blue flags, lived in the 1100 block of Deacon Street in North Philly with his mother, Lugenia Hill Sibert, and “Big Papa” George following his divorce and the Siberts migrating from South Carolina’s racist, Jim-Crow inferno.

His death certificate says he died of “broncho-pneumonia” and “hypertensive cardiac disease” at just age 37, only 16 years after joining the 371st Regiment Infantry.